


tonight i'm gonna be a little selfish

by SkyGem



Series: i've told a million lies but now i tell a single truth (there's you in everything i do) [1]
Category: One Piece
Genre: ASL Brothers, ASL as Whitebeards, Ace (mentioned) - Freeform, Gen, Luffy (Mentioned) - Freeform, No Context, Whitebeard (mentioned), a little "what if" au, just a little snapshot of a different timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:33:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26499436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkyGem/pseuds/SkyGem
Summary: "I didn't know you had a tattoo," she says.Startled, Sabo turns to look at her, then follows her gaze down to his own torso. When he sees it, his expression immediately goes soft. He peels his shirt off so that she can see the tattoo properly, and Koala's eyes widen in surprise as she realizes that it's a jolly roger."You were a pirate?"
Relationships: Koala & Sabo (One Piece)
Series: i've told a million lies but now i tell a single truth (there's you in everything i do) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1928551
Comments: 16
Kudos: 347





	tonight i'm gonna be a little selfish

**Author's Note:**

> I've been re-reading One Piece lately, so have a feelsy little one-shot. There's no context for this, and atm I'm not really planning on continuing it into a full fic. It's just an idea that wouldn't leave me alone so I decided to write it out. I ended up liking it a lot, so I hope you guys enjoy it too! I have a few other scenes in my mind from this same verse, so if there's enough demand, maybe I'll post a few more snapshots of this world! Hope you guys enjoy.

The first time Koala sees it is approximately a month after Sabo had joined the revolutionaries.

She and Sabo had just finished up a rather intense sparring session, and after making sure to cool down properly, they had both collapsed onto one of the benches in the training room to catch their breaths.

When Koala turns to offer Sabo a towel to wipe off some of the sweat, she almost looks right away again as she notices that that the white shirt he had worn during their duel is sticking to his skin, rendered basically see-through due to how damp it is.

Before she can avert her gaze though, her gaze catches on a dark shape on the side of Sabo's torso, and she tilts her head to the side in confusion.

"I didn't know you had a tattoo," she says.

Startled, Sabo turns to look at her, then follows her gaze down to his own torso.

When he sees it, his expression immediately goes soft.

Having noticed her curiosity, he peels his shirt off so that she can see the tattoo properly, and Koala's eyes widen in surprise as she realizes that it's a jolly roger.

"You were a _pirate_?" she demands as she lifts her gaze to stare, dumbfounded, at her friend.

"Is it that much of a surprise?" he asks with a chuckle.

"Yeah!" she says immediately. "I mean! You're so....well-mannered! And and and so _articulate!_ And I mean, I'm not trying to be offensive or anything like that, I-"

Sabo, whose smile had slowly been growing wider and wider as she had talked, bursts into laughter then. It's not unkind or mocking, but still Koala can't help but flush with embarrassment.

"You're not wrong," he concedes. "I've never been particularly interested in the traditional pirate things, treasure and pillaging and all that. To me, it was always just about the freedom of the open seas and the call of adventure. In the end, I guess that's part of why I fit in so well with my own crew."

Koala's gaze flickers to the tattoo again.

"The Whitebeard Pirates, right?" she asks in a quiet voice.

"Yeah," he says in a quiet, almost reverant, voice as he looks downwards, trailing his fingers across the mark. "I was ten when my brothers and I first met Whitebeard. We spent five years on his ship, and those five years...they were the happiest time in my life. And maybe it's weird to say, but that ship, my home...it's the only place I've ever truly felt safe."

"Even though you were surrounded by all those pirates?" Koala asks.

"Even then," Sabo replies with a chuckle. "Sure, it's probably not what most people would consider an ideal situation to raise a child in. Every single person on that ship had killed before, and will doubtless kill again. There was so much swearing it would make anyone blush. We were attacked by marines and rival pirates on a semi-consistent basis. But despite everything, I was never scared of any of the people on that ship. They were my family, you know?"

Koala smiles. "I can relate," she tells him. "I..."

She hesitates, almost doesn't continue. It's something she's never talked about with anyone, since it happened. But she knows that if anyone can understand...it's the man sitting next to him.

"I used to be a slave," she says to him, in a voice just above a whisper.

Sabo's eyes immediately snap to hers, the fond smile on his face immediately disappearing to be replaced by something fierce, something protective. It makes something warm bloom in her heart.

"Have you heard about Fisher Tiger?" she asks.

"Of course!" Sabo says immediately. "He was a hero! The current captain of the Sun Pirates, Jimbei, is a good friend of mine. I've heard so many stories from him about Fisher Tiger."

At his words, Koala's face breaks into a wide smile, her eyes filling with tears. Somehow, she's not surprised that Jimbei and Sabo are friends. They seem like they would get along well.

"I sailed with them for a while. The Sun Pirates, I mean," she explains, looking down at her knees. "Fisher Tiger...he saved me. He took me back to my home island, even though I had no way to repay him. I wasn't with them for very long, definitely not as long as the five years you spent with the Whitebeard Pirates, but that time was very precious to me...to this day, I still feel more comfortable around fishmen and merfolk than I do around other humans. It's like...it's like coming home."

Sabo doesn't say anything, and the two of them sit like that in a comfortable silence for a few minutes, before Koala finally breaks it again.

"So what happened when you were fifteen?" she asks.

Sabo shrugs. "We went back to Dawn Island," he says, and the fond happiness in his eyes has been replaced by something like concern. "Pops...he's been sick for a while now, and the crew was looking for more doctors and nurses to add to their roster. It's the only reason they were in the first half of the Grand Line in the first place. They rescued us from Sabaody."

He stops there for a moment, and Koala doesn't need him to explain what they had been doing there. She feels a familiar chill crawl up her spine as she realizes that she and Sabo have more in common than she had ever thought possible.

"They took us onboard the Moby Dick, and they were initially intending on helping us get back home, I'm sure. But as soon as Whitebeard's eyes landed on us...it was obvious. We were family, and even though it took us all a while to realize it, we felt the same about him. He let us stay on board for a while, just until he was sure we were safe and healthy and not traumatized. But a week turned into a month turned into a year. And next thing I know, I'm fifteen, and I'm standing in front of my father, and he tells me he's leaving us behind."

There's an undercurrent of agony in Sabo's voice, the tears in the corners his eyes showing just how much the memory still hurts him, even all these years later.

"He says that they've put it off as long as they can, but that they have to go back to the New World, and he can't take us with him."

Koala nods in understanding. "The oceans of the New World are no place for children," she says quietly. "He loved you, and wanted you to be safe."

Sabo nods. "And I knew that, you know? Ace and I both _knew_ it, but that didn't stop it from hurting. But our younger brother, Luffy...he was just twelve. And we knew why pops didn't want to drag him into that kind of danger. So we didn't put up any arguments. We had to be the strong ones that Luffy could rely on."

Koala can't help the small smile that tugs at the corners of her lips. In the short time they've known each other, Sabo has been an intensely private person (until now, that is). He doesn't talk much about his childhood, but the one thing everyone does know about is how much he adores those brothers of his.

"Before we were kidnapped from our home on Dawn Island, the three of us had made a pact," Sabo continues. "We were going to set sail when we turned seventeen. We would make our own crew and become famous pirates. We would be free. Pops knew that, so before he sent us off with Marco to return to Dawn, he made a promise with us... He said that no matter where in the world we went, we would always be his sons, and we would always have a home on the Moby Dick. When we set sail at seventeen, we needed only find our way home, and nothing on Earth could make us leave again if we didn't want to. To Ace and I...those words were like a lifeline."

"Not to Luffy?" Koala asks curiously.

Sabo laughs, shaking his head fondly. "Luffy was never going to join the Whitebeard Pirates. He's going to be the Pirate King one day, and the Pirate King can't be a member of another pirate's crew. When Luffy sets out at seventeen, it's going to be as a captain in his own right."

Coming from anybody else, those words would probably hold disbelief or perhaps mocking sarcasm, but the way Sabo says them...they're like a promise, like a simple statement of fact.

The sky is blue.

The Grand Line is dangerous.

And Monkey D Luffy is going to be the second Pirate King.

Koala finds herself looking forward to it.

"So how did you end up with the Revolutionaries then?" she asks.

All the laughter and joy drains out of Sabo's face at her question, and his lips press into a thin line.

"When I first set out, the only thought in my mind was to get home. To see my family again, to be back in the one place I had ever felt safe. The journey across the first half of the Grand Line was almost disappointing in how easy it was, though I hadn't really expected otherwise. After all, I had grown up there. I had learned to fight there. But being back in Sabaody...that was different. It was the first time I had been back there since the Whitebeards had rescued my brothers and I. I didn't expect to react as strongly as I did. It was all so completely disgusting to me, the bright, beautiful, glossy facade, all hiding the darkest, most depraved aspect of our society. Being back there reminded me of the bleak future I had imagined for myself when my brothers and I had been captured by slavers."

"And you don't want anyone else to go through that," Koala finishes for him.

Sabo doesn't meet her gaze when he says his next words.

"Not everyone is as lucky as my brothers and I were. It's bothered me all my life, that we got to escape and grow up happy, but there are so many more people, men and women and children, who never got that kind of miracle. I try to tell myself that's why I'm doing this, but I'm not as good as you, Koala. I'm a fundamentally selfish person. At the end of the day, I just want revenge for what they did to us. 

"By the time I reached Sabaody, Ace had already made it back to the Moby Dick, and all the headlines were screaming about how he had become the Second Division Commander of the Whitebeard Pirates. He looked so _happy_. The kind of happy that Luffy and I never dreamed he could be when we had first met him. And all I could think was that the World Government almost took that away from him."

( _He doesn't tell her about the other part - the part where both his brothers have the blood of world criminals running through their veins, and that in the government's eyes, their biggest crime is that they were born._

_He doesn't tell her that no matter how much Garp had tried to raise all three of his grandsons as upstanding Marine soldiers, that had never been an option for them._

_He doesn't tell her that as much as he wants to be a pirate like both his brothers, what he wants more is to burn down the government that had ever dared to make Ace believe the world would be better off without him._ )

"Why do you say that like it's a bad thing?" Koala asks, and Sabo's eyes snap upwards to stare at her in disbelief.

Koala smiles in exasperation.

"Everyone has their own selfish reasons for doing things, you know?" she says. "Of course, any decent person believes that slavery is bad, but the difference between the ones who go on with their lives while turning a blind eye and us is that we have something important enough to us that we'd be willing to risk everything to protect it."

"Why is it such a shameful thing that you love your brothers so much you'd change the world for them? Isn't that just proof of how precious your bond is?"

Sabo is looking at her wonderingly now, as if he can't quite believe she exists.

"I never thought about it that way," he says, blinking away tears.

Koala shrugs. "Having selfish reasons doesn't take away from the good you're doing. Whether you're a revolutionary because you want to protect your brothers, or because you believe it's your responsibility to serve some greater good, the outcome will be the same, won't it?"

"That's true," says Sabo quietly. "You'd get along great on the Moby Dick, you know. Pops would _love_ you."

This gets a laugh out of Koala. "I'd love to meet him some day," she says. "After all this is over, when we're allowed to be selfish again, maybe I'll go back with you to the Moby Dick. I've always wanted to be a pirate."

She knows how wishful it sounds.

They've still got so much to do, and there's no guarantee that they'll both make it out alive anyways.

But it's something to look forward to, no matter how distant it is.

It's something to live for, and maybe that will make all the differance.

Sabo's voice is all wistful and soft when he responds.

"I'd like that."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading to the end and if you enjoyed it, please leave a comment down below letting me know what you thought!


End file.
